Mark Montieth: The 1973 ABA champion Pacers were drama kings to the end

When it was all over but the shouting, not to mention the champagne spraying and unintended showering, Bob Leonard leaned back in a chair in the locker room and offered a weary smile.

“Another day in the life of a crazy man!” he sighed.

The Indiana Pacers had just won their third ABA championship over the Kentucky Colonels in Louisville’s Freedom Hall on May 12, 1973. Like their previous titles, in 1970 and 1972, it was clinched on the road. Unlike the others, it required all seven games of the finals to be secured. Fifty years later, it remains the franchise’s most recent league championship yet stands a world apart from today’s NBA.

Much of what happened along the road to their title was indeed crazy, as often was the case for the Pacers in the ABA, and certainly some of the players had a knack for driving Leonard toward that destination—right up to the season’s very last day, in fact. They were colorful characters, to say the least. Irresponsible at times, but unafraid. Often confounding, but cohesive. Ultimately, they had enough talent and experience to go all the way. But just barely.

They had a veteran roster, with four players who had won two championships and a proven coach in Leonard. The front office—led by General Manager John Weissert and with increased input on personnel matters from Leonard, who had been given the additional title of assistant GM—also had a standout season. It remade the splintered team that had won the title in 1972 by selling off Bob Netolicky and Rick Mount, who had made public trade requests during the finals, and acquiring five-time all-star guard Donnie Freeman.

It also traded for rookie Don Buse, an Indiana native who had been drafted in the fourth round by Virginia, and later added NBA veteran and future Naismith Hall of Famer Gus Johnson in December. Buse played in all but seven games, starting 13, and the 34-year-old Johnson made major contributions as a defender, rebounder and mentor while playing on ravaged knees.

They joined the core that included three future Naismith Hall of Famers—George McGinnis, Roger Brown and Mel Daniels—along with three-time all-star and ’72 finals MVP Freddie Lewis and proven part-time starters Bill Keller and Darnell Hillman. Just-happy-to-be-there newcomers Bill Newton and Bob Arnzen filled out the roster.

They won 51 games, fourth-best in the league and four fewer than Leonard’s preseason goal. Given their championship history, the only thing that truly piqued the interest of the veteran players was winning another one. Fortunately for them, on nights they weren’t feeling properly motivated, they had a budding superstar to carry them through the rough terrain.

A one-man highlight reel

McGinnis, 22 years old and in his second professional season after leaving Indiana University following his sophomore year, led the team in scoring (27.6 per game) and steals (1.9) and was second in rebounds (12.5). Given all that, nobody seemed too upset about his league-leading turnover rate (4.9).

He was a one-man highlight reel throughout most of the season. There was, for example, the Nov. 11 game at Utah when he was supposed to sit out with a dislocated left index finger and pulled groin muscle. He was fooling around an hour before tipoff, shooting in street clothes, and decided he liked the baskets in the Salt Palace. He told Arnzen that, if he hit his next shot, a 3-pointer from deep in the corner, he would play.

He did, and he did—and went on to score a career-high 39 points and grab 24 rebounds in a 20-point victory.

“George is just destroying the league,” Utah coach LaDell Anderson said after the game. “He’s on a rampage, and nobody can stop him.”

The rampage continued in San Diego the following night when McGinnis scored 36 points and hit the game-breaking shot from just inside the 3-point line with 33 seconds remaining. Nine days later, he upgraded his career high to 42 points and hit a well-defended turnaround jumper for the game-winning shot with one second left in a one-point victory at Memphis.

Seven days after that, on Nov. 28, he set the franchise’s single-game scoring record with 58 points while playing all 53 minutes of an overtime game at Dallas. He also had 16 rebounds, eight steals and nine turnovers in a typically rambunctious performance.

The scoring record still stands, one more than Reggie Miller managed in Charlotte, North Carolina, exactly 20 years later.

Tumultuous buildup

It was obvious by then the Pacers’ hopes for a third title rested precariously on the sculptured shoulders of their youngest starter. And it surprised nobody that it was going to have to come over their fiercest rival and Interstate 65 neighbor, the Kentucky Colonels, who had won five more regular-season games than the Pacers. It also seemed inevitable the series was going to be a wild one.

The Pacers won the opener in Louisville in overtime. Colonels management filed a protest (later denied) over a three-second call that negated a field goal. After the final buzzer, some of the Colonels’ incensed fans went after the Pacers as they left the court. One got into a fight with a police office and was arrested. Others challenged Johnson, who threw a half-filled soft drink cup at one of them. Daniels had to be dragged into the locker room by three teammates after being confronted in a corridor. A Pacers ballboy was punched, and Leonard said one Kentucky fan had waved a gun.

“A normal Pacer-Colonel game,” he shrugged afterward.

Kentucky won the next two games to regain home-court advantage, then Indiana won two to take it back.

Game 4 in Indianapolis was highlighted by a brief scuffle between Freeman and Mount, who was now a Colonel, in the second quarter that sent both players to the floor in a tangled heap, but neither was ejected.

Leonard was, however, after he stomped his foot and shouted something toward Lewis about a defensive breakdown while leaving the court at halftime. Referee Joe Gushue thought Leonard was yelling at him and told him not to return for the second half. Johnson coached the team in the second half, usually while stretched out on the court in front of the bench to ease the pain in his back.

The Pacers won Game 5 in Louisville when McGinnis made up for fumbling the ball out of bounds by stealing the ensuing inbounds pass and driving for the game-winning layup with 23 seconds left—the details of which he can recall clearly today. That set up an opportunity to clinch the championship at the Coliseum in Game 6, on a Thursday, but the Pacers couldn’t handle the moment. With champagne on ice and a beyond-capacity crowd of 10,079 in the building, they were drubbed by 16 points.

Better late than never

So, it came down to Game 7 in Louisville, where the Pacers came up with one of the most bizarre ways to go about winning a championship a team has ever conjured.

Tip-off was 1 p.m. on Saturday, so the team bus left Indy early Friday afternoon in time to have a light workout at Freedom Hall. Leonard gave his players the option of driving down on their own, however, and some players took advantage of his trust. Abused it, actually.

Buse, Newton and Arnzen, who shared an apartment, drove down together. Their memories differ on whether they missed the bus or decided to go on their own, but all agree they didn’t get the word about the practice session until reaching the team hotel. They also agree they had consumed a lot of beer on the way down. They were late for practice and in compromised condition.

“We were pretty messed up,” Arnzen recalled. “It was a funny scene seeing us trying to run through plays. We were scared to death.”

Buse, thinking they would just be watching film, didn’t bother to take his basketball shoes. He had to participate in his socks, sliding around the court to everyone’s amusement.

“We weren’t ready to go to a practice, for damn sure,” he recalled. “I don’t know what would happen today if that happened.

“Those were the good ol’ days,” he added, laughing.

Brown, meanwhile, outdid them all. He didn’t show up at the hotel in Louisville until about 2 a.m. Saturday, according to a newspaper report. Some players, McGinnis and Hillman among them, recalled Brown showing up late for the game as well, walking in the locker room while Leonard was at the chalkboard going over the new offense he had installed. It was one that allowed the guards to penetrate more often, which the Colonels admitted caught them by surprise.

“Seeing Roger come in there and how silent everybody got, it was alpha to alpha,” Hillman said. “Roger isn’t going to take any heat, but Slick doesn’t want to bite his tongue.”

“We were just waiting for Slick to explode,” McGinnis said. “But he never did.”

Sweet victory

Funny thing was, all the tardiness might have worked to the Pacers’ advantage. They certainly were the looser team. Hillman remembers being worried because his teammates seemed so relaxed before the game. Kentucky, on the other hand, was drum-head tight, just as the Pacers had been in Game 6. That was particularly true in the third quarter when the Colonels hit just three of 22 shots and scored 11 points. The Pacers’ lead grew from one to 12 during that period, and they were never threatened in the fourth in their 88-81 victory.

Once again, McGinnis led the way. He finished with 27 points, 13 in the third quarter, and was awarded a Dodge Charger as the series MVP. Hillman grabbed 13 rebounds, and he and McGinnis held Dan Issel, one of the Colonels’ three future Hall of Famers, to 12 points. Freeman, Lewis, Daniels, Johnson and Keller all made significant contributions as well.

As did the belated Brown. He had come off the bench in the three previous games because of a sore back, but Leonard had said following the Game 6 loss that he would return him to the starting lineup to boost the offense. Leonard changed his mind, however, when Brown didn’t show up for Friday’s practice. Whatever. He scored 10 points and hit two timely jump shots in the final period to maintain the lead.

Truth was, Brown’s teammates kind of admired him for his calm rebellions, given his clutch performances.

“Roger was a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants guy,” Keller said. “Slick would yell at him, and he’d light up a cigarette and laugh. It seemed like Roger could turn it on and turn it off.”

Cool gave way to crazy in the Pacers locker room. Colonels trainer Lloyd Gardner took all but one of the 24 bottles of champagne he had put on ice (he still has the other one) and walked them over to the victors where they could be properly sprayed and swigged amid the cloud of victory cigars. Three women—Leonard’s wife, Nancy; Hillman’s wife, Linda; and front-office employee Sandy Knapp—were carried into the shower. Leonard soon followed against his will, as did one of the two Indianapolis sportswriters who covered the team.

The Pacers appeared before one more capacity crowd three nights later when the team held a victory banquet in the exposition building at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. About 1,600 fans showed up, 100 more than dinners of Kentucky Fried Chicken had been ordered. Freeman was excused because he was headed for surgery. Daniels didn’t show up, either, for an unexplained reason.

“Mel always has a good reason to miss something. But I’ll be damned if I know that reason,” Leonard told reporters.

So, there you have it. Your 1973 ABA champion Pacers—drama kings to the end.•

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Montieth, an Indianapolis native, is a longtime newspaper reporter and freelance writer. He is the author of three books: “Passion Play: Coach Gene Keady and the Purdue Boilermakers,” “Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis,” and “Extra Innings: My Life in Baseball,” with former Indianapolis Indians President Max Schumacher.